The beginning of a new month brings with it the opportunity to look back
at the month gone by and to give one last glance at what I most
recently read. The below listed books are what I read during the month
of October.
1. The Builders, by Daniel Polansky
2. The Trials, by Linda Nagata
3. The House of Shattered Wings, by Aliette de Bodard
4. Sorcerer to the Crown, by Zen Cho
5. The Dark Forest, by Cixin Liu
6. The Bristling Wood, by Katherine Kerr
7. You're Never Weird on the Internet, by Felicia Day
8. The End of All Things, by John Scalzi
9. The Traitor Baru Cormorant, by Seth Dickinson
10. Witches of Lychford, by Paul Cornell
Best Book of the Month: Can I make it a three-way tie? I really don't want to have to choose between The House of Shattered Wings, Sorcerer to the Crown, and The Traitor Baru Cormorant. I highly recommend all of them.
Disappointment of the Month: I would hesitate to call The Dark Forest a disappointment because that would suggest I came into it with expectations, and I did not. I did not enjoy nor appreciate the Hugo Award winning Three-Body Problem and normally that would be enough to have me not read the sequel, but I figure that there is a better than average chance The Dark Forest will pick up a nomination in 2016 so I might as well read it now. Also, it was supposed to be "better" than the first book. It might have been, but I still bounce hard off of this series. Not a fan.
Discovery of the Month: Seth Dickinson and Zen Cho are damn good writers. Also - go read Felicia Day's memoir!
Worth Noting: Except for The Dark Forest, every other book I read this month was excellent to outstanding. This was probably the highest quality month of reading I've had in some time, but I'd have to actually check my records for that.
Gender Breakdown: I was an even 50% for October on my gender breakdown, which brings me to 64/110 for the year. This slides my percentage down just a touch to 58.18% books written by women. Goal is still on track. I'd like to slide that up over 60%, but I'm still nailing the goal so I'm happy.
Previous Months:
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September